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When Harvard University opened its doors in 1636, there were already well-established universities in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru.
The 20th century has been marked by cynicism, selfishness, greed, and the desire to please, all without changing the status quo. In the 21st century, we must resurrect solidarity and compassion.
We need a force that recognizes that only through development and liberty, through education and health care, through better priorities and wiser investments, can we achieve the stability we seek.
India, Pakistan, China, Singapore and South Korea are heavily investing in nuclear arms. Since 21st century is the century of Asia, Asian countries should be the first ones to drop this arms race.
The best way to perpetuate poverty is by spending on arms and military, and the best way to fight terrorism is by fighting the basic needs of humanity, because hunger and poverty perpetuate crime.
On Dec. 1, 1948, after the triumph of the revolution, which insured the final victory of the will of the people expressed through elections, President Jose Figueres abolished the army in my country.
Although fostering a peaceful, prosperous and equitable hemisphere is clearly in the best interest of the United States, Washington has not always supported Central America's struggle for economic survival.
The plight of the terrified Central American children who have flooded across the U.S. border to escape violence and poverty in their homelands has launched a passionate and often bitter debate in Washington.
There is a difference between the typical politician and the statesman. A typical politician is that person who tells people what people want to hear, while the statesman tells people what people need to know.
I am not a pacifist, however I do believe that the U.S. tends to resort to force too quickly. I am not referring only to the current administration; the same thing happened in the Balkans, and on other occasions.
To demilitarize the country means to make a profound decision. It is not enough to change the name of the armed forces. It is necessary to change the minds of those people who only yesterday wore a military uniform.
We want to allow Costa Ricans to make a qualitative leap in our development and go to an economy based on innovation and developing a broadband infrastructure in order to overcome the barrier of 15 per cent penetration.
It's clear to me that many weapons sales are very short-sighted. The U.S. and other arms-producing countries sell weapons for a variety of reasons, but most sales involve strategic interest or profit motivation, or both.
How ironic for peacemaking efforts to discover that hatred is stronger for many than love; that the longing to achieve power through military victories makes so many men lose their reason, forget all shame, and betray history.
At one time in the history of the Americas, weapons and armies were associated with liberty and independence, and with new opportunities for our peoples. At one time in the history of the Americas, there were liberating armies.
I shall never accept that the law can be used to justify tragedy, to keep things as they are, to make us abandon our ideas of a different world. Law is the path of liberty, and must as such open the way to progress for everyone.
Costa Rica, with its tourist-based economy and lack of a national army, has focused on keeping safe its beaches, parks and other public draws. It is one if the safest countries in Central America based on the number of homicides.
Women continue receiving less salary for the same kind of job. Women have a higher unemployment rate in our country. When you analyze the composition of poverty, you will find that most of the families in poverty are being run by a woman.
Latin Americans hold on tight even to pain and suffering, preferring a certain present to an uncertain future. Some of this is only natural, entirely human. But for us, the fear is paralyzing; it generates not only anxiety but also paralysis.
We seek in Central America not peace alone, not peace to be followed someday by political progress, but peace and democracy, together, indivisible, an end to the shedding of human blood, which is inseparable from an end to the suppression of human rights.
Peace consists, very largely, in the fact of desiring it with all one's soul. The inhabitants of my small country, Costa Rica, have realized those words by Erasmus. Mine is an unarmed people, whose children have never seen a fighter or a tank or a warship.
We may believe in the state's responsibility to alleviate the crushing poverty that afflicts 40 percent of Latin America's population, but most of us also affirm that there is no better cure for that poverty than a stronger, more globally integrated economy.
While the armed forces have intervened in the political affairs of every other Central American country over the past fifty years, with disastrous results, in Costa Rica we have peacefully transferred power from one administration to the next every four years.
I am constantly challenged by pessimists who insist that military solutions are the only way to go. This was true in the 1980s, and it is true today. You should know that I do not consider myself a pacifist; there are times, in my view, when military action may be necessary.
Many developing countries continue to be burdened by high percentages of their population living in poverty. Yet, instead of addressing this root cause of conflict, many states, ironically, increase their military might in order to control increasingly desperate populations.
You don't only have the need to do it well because leading a country is something quite important, but also because I am the first woman I have the obligation to do it the best possible way so my country can continue voting for women in the future. It is a big responsibility.
Costa Rica remains peacefully and firmly committed to the well- being and safety of our population. We promote a model of development based upon harmony with nature; solidarity and social inclusion; economic and trade opening; development of our human resources, and innovation.
The Internet is the hope of an integrated world without frontiers, a common world without controlling owners, a world of opportunities and equality. This is a utopia that we have been dreaming about and is a world in which each and every one of us are protagonists of a destiny that we have in our hands.
When you face unexpected events, you have to try to overcome those problems, but at the same time, you have to continue working according to the plan that you defined since the beginning. So that's what we have tried to do - not to avoid the urgent responses but to continue the route that we had defined.
The problem with basing weapons sales on strategic interest is that these interests tend to shift over time, while weapons are durable goods that do not evaporate as quickly as some alliances do. Once supplied, they can't be taken back. That leads to situations such as the ones we have seen in Iraq, Somalia.
In 1995, world military spending totaled nearly $800 billion. If we redirected just $40 billion of those resources over the next 10 years to fighting poverty, all of the world's population would enjoy basic social services, such as education, health care, nutrition, reproductive health, clean water and sanitation.
I would like to see the U.S. fighting another war, perhaps in addition to that against terror: a war on poverty, illiteracy, disease and environmental degradation. It is certainly within the power of your country to act on all of these fronts, but, unfortunately, your leaders have become obsessed with a single issue.
Hope is the strongest driving force for a people. Hope which brings about change, which produces new realities, is what opens man's road to freedom. Once hope has taken hold, courage must unite with wisdom. That is the only way of avoiding violence, the only way of maintaining the calm one needs to respond peacefully to offenses.
For ages the world has been living by the stupidity of an old Roman adage that says if you want peace, prepare for war. As if anything said in ancient times must be wise, people have used this phrase to justify some of the most unjustifiable arms build-ups, which, far from creating peace, has only become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
My country is a country of teachers. It is therefore a country of peace. We discuss our successes and failures in complete freedom. Because our country is a country of teachers, we closed the army camps, and our children go about with books under their arms, not with rifles on their shoulders. We believe in dialogue, in agreement, in reaching a consensus.
Peace is a never-ending process, the work of many decisions by many people in many countries. It is an attitude, a way of life, a way of solving problems and resolving conflicts. It cannot be forced on the smallest nation or enforced by the largest. It cannot ignore our differences or overlook our common interests. It requires us to work and live together.
I cannot accept that to be realistic means to tolerate misery, violence and hate. I do not believe that the hungry man should be treated as subversive for expressing his suffering. I shall never accept that the law can be used to justify tragedy, to keep things as they are, to make us abandon our ideas of a different world. Law is the path of liberty, and must as such open the way to progress for everyone.
I have to believe in the possibility of peace, because the alternative is to accept the inevitability of continual war, and of always living in fear. It doesn't have to be that way. However, there are no simple solutions, and I am not the possessor of a magic formula for peace. All I can say is that for peace to succeed it requires perseverance, patience, humility, compromise, and commitment, from all parties.
The best way to perpetuate poverty is spending on arms, and poverty itself is a form of violence. The wealthy industrialized countries have been too slow to recognize this. I hope that in this new century and new millennium, the world will learn that if you want peace, you must prepare for peace, plan for peace, work for it, and comply with its dictates. Lasting peace will never be achieved with the instruments of war.
The existence of nuclear weapons presents a clear and present danger to life on Earth. Nuclear arms cannot bolster the security of any nation because they represent a threat to the security of the human race. These incredibly destructive weapons are an affront to our common humanity, and the tens of billions of dollars that are dedicated to their development and maintenance should be used instead to alleviate human need and suffering
We are calling on countries that supply weapons to comply with certain restrictions: not to sell weapons to human rights abusers, not to sell them to governments or groups carrying out aggression against states, not to make weapons sales that could disrupt security or development in the receiving region. These are in many ways common sense principles, but sadly, there seems to be very little common sense in the international arms trade.
Action had to be taken in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, but I am very concerned about the current administration's rhetoric and apparent zeal to expand military action to other places. I'm afraid that terrorism is being used as an excuse, not only for possible military action in such places as Iraq, Iran, and the Philippines, but also for exorbitant increases in defense spending that have nothing to do with terrorism.